When it comes to healing the racial wounds that divide this country into the oppressed and the oppressor, the thing that comes up time and time again as a means to healing is dialogue. We need to talk. And we, as White people, need to listen.

And more importantly, we need to listen when people are expressing their anger. As I have read the accounts of different Black Americans, the thing I continually hear is White Americans only want to listen when it's comfortable. We must be spoken to in soft, calming tones. We want to be reassured we're good people. We want to be told things aren't that bad, and it's okay to let time heal this. We don't want to be made aware of the sense of urgency the Black community lives with.

We, the White people, must be treated like fragile glass eggs that could break at any second. We must not be made aware of the deep residing pain that develops within Black Americans as they live with the daily struggles of racism - from both micro and macro aggressions.

White Americans are uncomfortable with the anger of Black men and women for many reasons. It makes us feel guilty. It makes us afraid we'll respond wrong and be labeled racist (this is a reflection of how much we make this about ourselves). It makes us afraid because we have internalized false biases about how Black people are naturally more violent (if you believe this, we need to have an even longer discussion RIGHT NOW). And on a deeper level, we don't want these inherently cruel and patently wrong prejudices to be surfaced, because again, that would make us look bad.

On average, White people want to see things change without having to acknowledge that people are angry. Because if we see the anger, then we see the pain, and if see the pain, we must admit things have been bad for a very, very long time and we have done nothing for a very, very long time.

A Black man's life, in his own words:

The above example features many of the micro aggressions that Black Americans experience on a daily basis. For the most part, a lot of the protests have revolved around the macro aggression - the open killing of unarmed Black people.

However, when we are only moved to action by the overt racism, we are looking at the waterfall while ignoring the gushing river leading up to it. Yes, the waterfall catches our attention. But it's the powerful current of water behind it that causes it.

This current shows up as daily forms of insidious judgement, prejudice, and demeaning behavior. The problem is, as White Americans, we don't see it. Below is a powerful example of this. You didn't see this happen. And if there wasn't a video, would you believe it did? I have left the caption in so the young men from Team Top Figure can speak about it in their own words.

The above video is an example of what it means to be labeled by White Americans as "other" in this country. To be Black is to constantly encounter people who think you don't belong. You must constantly prove your right and your worthiness to exist. Make no mistake - this video is not an isolated incident (as they noted in the caption). It was just the one time they decided to film it happening. Imagine how exhausting that would be. How infuriating it would be. How it would get inside your head - is it really me? Am I imagining this?

Along with the micro and macro aggresions, there's something in between this. A sort of national complacency that allows a deeply racist man to own a NBA team with a mostly Black roster (Donald Sterling). It's what allows us to make folk heroes out of men like Cliven Bundy. In 2014, Bundy held an armed standoff in Nevada to oppose government overreach. Bundy, who is a source of inspiration for many White Americans, said this about the Black community, "They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves?"

Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy are only the tip of iceberg. The fact is, we as White people have a long history of idealizing and elevating racist people into positions of power and influence. The most glaring example is of course our current president (to understand this begin with his role in the Central Park 5). But as I pointed out in the two examples above, it's not just the man at the top. He's just the one we are all aware of. Racist people hold positions of power, from city council to landlords to middle managers, in every corner of this country. As a White person, this can be hard to see, because to us they appear neutral. There is no negative impact for us. Nothing forces you or I to acknowledge their existence. And so we don't.

You add all of that up, plus all the things I didn't get into (there is so much more) and yes, there is a lot to be angry about. And adding to the anger is the fact that, as a Black person, your anger is considered inappropriate and unwanted. If you're Black and talking about your life, your children, or your community, you're not allowed to express any emotion. Don't yell. Don't glare. Don't get tense. Be as soft and tender as possible. Make us feel safe.

The bottom line is, asking Black people to talk about racism while demonizing their anger is akin to emotional torture. It's a brutal way of negating someone's experience. It's a direct blow to someone's right to feel in response to the world around them. It's a form of silencing people who need to be heard more than ever.

And so I leave you with last one video. This one might make you uncomfortable. It might bring up all kinds of stories and biases. It might make you want to return to the words and voices softened for your comfort. Keep watching. Resist any urges to project onto them how they "should" act or what you would do. We, as White people, do not experience racism. We have no idea how it feels. We have no place to say how anyone should respond to it. Our only place is to listen and understand this is but a glimpse of the emotional weight Black Americans carry every day.

Photo at top by Nicole Baster on Unsplash

​When white people talk about a person of color in a movie, they will often identify that person by their race or ethnicity. "I really like the black woman, she's..." or "Why did that one guy do that? You know, the Asian one..." We, as white people, are well aware of other people's race and use it as a way to identify them. When we speak about our fellow white people, however, we rarely, if ever, identify them as being white. "The tall woman..." or "The one on the phone."

For us, as white people, we do not see whiteness as a means of description. In our minds, to be white is to exist. To describe the "white woman" or the "white man" wouldn't make sense because, at any given time, we are surrounded by white people and that could mean just about anyone. To white people, we are not a part of a race. We just are.

When it is pointed out that we are in fact part of a racial group, we, as white people, tend to cringe with internal discomfort. We don't like to be thought of as a collective. We like to see ourselves as individuals, free of the constraints of racial identity.

Part of the reason being a member of the white race makes us so uncomfortable is because we know that, historically, a white group was often an angry mob, a conqueror, a system of terror. The white race is associated with the colonization of Native lands (the US, Australia, South Africa, India, etc.), genocide, the KKK, white supremacy, and so on. And not to mention the millions of whites who still, in present times, consider the white race to be superior. To be a part of the white group, the white race, means we are a part of a group that causes inexplicable pain (when I say "white race" I mean as a social concept - there is no biological white race). 

On the other hand, when we as whites identify with the white individual, we connect ourselves with heroes. There is no shortage of white people (mostly men who are straight and able bodied, but that's another conversation), who we feel have contributed valiantly to politics, medicine, art, and science. We loathe the idea of being lumped in with the white race but love the idea of being white individuals. We even fantasize about being the next great white hero, the next Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins, Bill Gates, Marie Curie, Susan B. Anthony, and so on.

We wonder what contribution we'll make, how we'll be remembered, and how our legacy, as the individual we are, will be memorialized.

However, to not identify with a race is something only whites are allowed to do. We can choose to ignore our racial identity because we see whiteness everywhere (the government, tv, movies, CEOs, writers, our neighborhood, restaurants, work, etc). It feels like the norm, and we've internalized it as the norm, thereby negating our need to identify it, because to be white is to just be. Whiteness defines the Western human experience.

​It is so interwoven into the society white Europeans built that we (as white people) don't even realize it's there. Which leads us to believe it's not necessary to acknowledge it, or to claim we're a part of it. For many white people, they would say a part of what? And in that question, they unwillingly acknowledge that society is so intertwined with the white experience that there is no place where they end and everything else begins. You can't acknowledge something you can't see. But, just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. In fact, brown and black people will readily tell you that they see where the white race begins and ends. They see what it means to be white. And because we, as white people, are so used to seeing ourselves everywhere, it's a shock when someone points out that because whiteness has no end, because it so deeply pervades society, it is actively erasing everything that exists beyond its borders.

In other words, to be brown or black is to be invisible. It is to be outside the scope of what we've deemed human existence is. 

Its is only us white people, who cannot perceive of ourselves the way everyone else does, who see our skin color as so universal, so standard, so equated with the very concept of humanity, that we don't even realize that our whiteness is intertwined with the reality we're living. We rarely, if ever, reflect on what it means to be a person of color and interacting with the white race.

In order to root out systematic racism, we as white people must acknowledge the reason it makes us so uncomfortable to be thought of as a white race or a white group. And in acknowledging this, we must come to terms with how other people see us, as white people dominating a diverse world.

As we've talked about so far, we white people prefer to be defined as individuals. That's what we've been socialized to believe we are. And so when we enter a room with people of color, we don't register why our presence would make anyone there uncomfortable. In our minds, we project onto them our individual qualities. We think they see a person who is kind. Or a person who is funny. A person who is warm and loving.

However, upon looking at me, or you, or anyone else who is white, there is no way to know who you are individually. What you are, to people who don't know you, is a white person. You may be racist. You may not be. You might be a white supremacist. Or you might not be. You might wish harm onto people of color. Or maybe not. How can anyone tell by looking at you?

We as white people must realize that although our intentions are good, we are part of a race of people that calls the cops on a black family having a bbq. We are part of a race of people who calls the cops on two black men sitting in Starbucks, waiting for a meeting to start. We are part of a race of people who have been caught on video killing black people.

Therefore, we must acknowedlge that although we believe ourselves to be good people, when we walk into a room, down a street, or get on a bus, there's no way to know whether or not we're the next Karen. There's no way to know if we're about to exert terror on an unsuspecting person of color.

There. Is. No. Way. To. Know.

As I learned about identity, racism, and where I stood in it all, it was hard to reconcile the public perception many people hold of me with my private self. To come to realize my presence caused people anxiety and uncertainty was something I wanted to deny. Surely not me. Them, yes. But not me. And that is me returning to my insistence that I be seen as an individual, and not a member of the white race.

And now you might be thinking That's not fair! I'm not racist! I'm a GOOD person!

All I can say is, now you are beginning to understand how it feels to be judged for your skin color. But make no mistake - the way white people are judged is incomparable to the way people of color are judged. You will not be killed for being white. You will not have a police officer kneel on your neck with his hands in his pockets, casually strangling the life out of you. You will not lose out on jobs, housing, or loans because you are white.

Rather, you will benefit. Being white is not going to derail your life. It's going to accelerate it (many people refuse to hear this point because discrimination is illegal. Legality does not stop people from committing crimes. If it did we would not have robbers and rapists. People break the law all the time. The only way to stop discrimination is to stop racism).

We may not like that we are a race, and one of the main reasons we don't is we've never had to think of ourselves that way. Generalizing and grouping people by race is thus far something that has been done by white people and not to them. We exempted ourselves and therefore respond with anger, defensiveness, and wounded pride when it's done to us. When we are asked to see ourselves as white, our knee jerk reaction is to claim we are not racist. We're not like those people. We're different. We're an individual. We proclaim this with pride, without a hint of irony that our insistence on being seen as an individual, rather than a member of a socially constructed race, can only be done if we grant ourselves special privileges no other race has.

For more on this I highly recommend the book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (make sure you get the updated version - the first edition was published two decades ago). This series will be continued with part 3 - what does it mean to be a good ally?

When Michelle met with a group of teenage girls, one of them asked her how she feels about transitioning back to her normal life. How would Michelle navigate the leap from First Lady back to the life she was living before? How would she get back on track?

I love this quote because so many of us are currently in a place of transition. Due to the current circumstances, many of us are facing the reality that we cannot do, or don't want to do, what we've been doing. We're also acknowledging that life won't be like it was before, and we have to create a new track. Considering what it would be like to go from the all-consuming role as First Lady onto a completely new, unknown role, inspired me to embrace the unknown and the new with courage and integrity.

In a later group meeting with young black women (Michelle speaks often in the film about her passion for working with the youth), Rayven asked a powerful question:

One thing I loved about this film was how open Michelle was about racial inequality in this country. It's something she wasn't able to speak so directly to while she was First Lady. And I also love how she empowered each one of those women with her words. She didn't ask them to wait for something outside of them to change. She asked them to change their circumstances within while at the same time acknowledging we are not on an even playing field. This is so important because I see so many people who say the first part - change begins within. But they don't do the second part, which is to validate the affect that oppression and bias has.

"I have high expectations of young people. It's the same expectations my family had of me. My grandfather, Dandy, expected us to be great. But he went through life being underestimated. Growing up, he was a brilliant young man, somebody that loved to read books, to delve into things in a deep and meaningful way. He could have been a professor. He could have been a doctor. But because of race and class, he couldn't get into colleges. He didn't have the money or the resources. And imagine walking around with all this ability and the world telling you, "No. No, you're not good enough. No, you're not ready." Watching people half your intelligence being promoted past you. Watching opportunities slip away, Not because you're not able, but because nobody thinks you deserve it.That caused him a lot of disappointment and anger. That made him push us to be better." - Michelle Obama, Becoming

Of all the quotes in the movie, this one stood out to me the most. It struck me not only because of the anger I would feel if I was Dandy's granddaughter, but because this is still the world we live in. We still promote people based on the fact that they fit an inner ideal of what we think a successful person should look like. Until we tear down all our prejudices, we will continue to all lose out on the brilliance and ingenuity of so many of our fellow citizens.

"I ended up going to Princeton. I was one of a handful of minority students. It was the first time in my life where I stood out like that. I learned that one of my roommates moved out because her mother was horrified that I was black. She felt her daughter was in danger. I wasn't prepared for that." - Michelle Obama, Becoming

This quote also stood out to me above all the others. If someone couldn't live with me because my skin color made them afraid, and I was a young girl, finding my place in the world, I wouldn't know what to do. Can you imagine the impact that would have on a young, developing psyche? And as with the quote above, this is still the reality of the world we live in. No one should have to question their worthiness or their humanity because of the ignorance of another person.

This was one of the last quotes I noted. I had about six other quotes highlighted, which I cut because I wanted to end with this one. What stands out to me about this quote is the reminder that Obama filled arenas on hope. It's such a powerful reminder because I so often see our current president filling arenas based on anger, division, and bullying. I had forgotten that not long ago, hundreds of thousands of people also filled arenas, and on a message of hope and unity. Those people are still out there. And if, after all she's been through, Michelle can still believe in the goodness of people and this country, then I can too.

I wish I could have put down all the quotes from the film I'd saved. There were so many moments I paused, reflected on her words, and thought about the class and gracefulness she brought to everything she did and does. But the thing that really surprised me was how funny Michelle is. We all know she has a brilliant mind and an inspiring, forward thinking spirit. What I had never seen before was how funny and charismatic she is. 

Becoming is available to stream on Netflix. I hope you get a chance to see it also! And now I'm off to download the audio book because I love hearing author's tell me their story in their own voice.

As the social consciousness of this country evolved, the concept of being racist went from being something that was normal, even good, to being something that was socially taboo. After the Civil Rights Movement, we made a collective agreement that to be a racist was to be a bad person. Racists were the people on TV in 1963 blasting black protesters with fire hoses. They were the people who used the n word and enacted emotional and physical violence. They were the lynchers, the KKK, and in modern times, they're the men who marched and chanted at Charlotesville. 

We essentially created a binary where RACIST = BAD and NOT RACIST = GOOD. Only bad people can be racist. To be a good person, you cannot and must not be racist. However, in a country where we internalize beliefs from our neighborhoods, the media, music, movies, tv shows, and our schools from before we can even remember, this binary forces us to pretend we've received no messaging about race. It asks us not to question any subconscious beliefs we've internalized about superiority, power, the whiteness of the government, the whiteness of CEOs, and the blackness of the prison system. All we must know is that racism is bad and that we don't support it.

Questioning our subconscious and implicit biases then puts us in a moral dilemma - if we admit that  we internalized some bias, such as that black men are more prone to crime, does that mean we're racist and bad people? In order to escape this dilemma, we have thus far closed our eyes to it, preventing any growth or restructuring to the consciousness we've developed.

This binary, which was meant to be helpful and condemn racism, has become an iron grid locking us all in place. The reason we, as white people, can so easily look the other way on this is we are on the top side of the iron grid. The brown and black communities, however, are on the bottom side of it, and being crushed by its weight. This binary is blocking all progress and action steps towards equality. Because white people dread and bristle at any implication of being called a racist, when a person of color mentions we have done or said something hurtful, we feel attacked. We don't hear what they're saying about why a certain phrase or behavior is rooted in stereotyping or ignorance. We don't see the hurt we've caused. We don't hear the frustration as they try to open our eyes. All we hear is, "You are racist," which in our binary systems means, "You are a bad person."

As Robin Diangelo, the author of White Fragility says, "Within this paradigm, to suggest I am racist is to deliver a deep moral blow - a kind of character assassination. Having received this blow, I must defend my character, and that is where all my energy will go - to deflecting the charge, rather than reflecting on my behavior. In this way, the good/bad binary makes it nearly impossible to talk to white people about racism, what it is, how it shapes all of us, and the inevitable ways that we are conditioned to participate in it."

In order to tear this iron grid down, we, as white people, must realize that racism is not on a binary. It's not an either/or. It's a complicated, messy, network of threads that runs through the entire fabric of our society. Good people have biases. Good people are effected by the relentless, dominant, societal messaging that is inescapable. Good people are caught up in the social conditioning of racism as much as anyone else. In order to tear down systemic racism, we must confront the fact that we can strive to be good people while also working on our biases.

In an ideal world, the human mind would not form biases. But it does. And pretending it doesn't does not make us color blind. It makes us color silent (a term coined by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum). Pretending not to see race and racism, and refusing to reflect on our own social consciousness, does not make us an ally to people of color. It just makes us silent.

In spirituality, healing has so far focused on the individual. It is almost always written from the perspective of healing our own traumas, fears, and blocks to our greater self.

Rarely is spirituality seen as something that should be used to bring us together. Although we know there are wounds and divides happening all around us, we have yet to turn our attention to healing as a group concept.

At the same time, we know that an essential part of healing is overcoming a concept of separation. In healing, we return to wholeness with our Higher Self, the Universe, our Higher Power, and with the parts of our selves that we shut out and blocked. Despite this awareness that separation is a source of pain, we never ask ourselves how we can heal separation on a larger scale.

We have yet to ask how separation in our communities can be healed. We have yet to ask why overcoming the divisions that cause us to fear and judge each other is so important. And we have yet to ask how, by healing our social and communal wounds, we will find the true meaning of healing.

Until we see healing as a thing for the collective, rather than a thing for the individual, we will never truly heal.

This concept of coming together and connecting is something I have only recently begun to explore myself. As I open myself up to it, I find my consciousness taking on a new form. I must unlearn the singular perspective I was raised with and begin to learn a new, more comprehensive way of being.

One thing that has profoundly helped me with this is the documentary The Color of Fear. It was recommended to me by a friend, and I now know why she felt it was important I see it. Although done in 1994, it's as relevant today as ever. What this documentary does, is it shows the power of healing when we bring different types of people together and get them talking.

So often, we discredit listening to another person as an essential human experience. We think that people who are experiencing social injustices need so much more. And because we know there is social injustice happening all around us, we feel daunted, overwhelmed, depressed and eventually powerless. We do nothing, because we feel nothing can be done.

However, no one person is being asked to heal all that's happening right now. In fact, believing we can or should is often an action of the ego. We may even discredit listening because it requires us to step back, to release the need to make ourselves the hero of someone else's story.

Instead, listening asks us to empower the other person so they can heal themselves.

Listening asks us to hear and understand that the experiences we have are not the experiences other people are having. And for white people, like myself, listening asks us to stop making oppression a problem for everyone else. We, who stand in a position of privilege, must become active participants in change. And the first action step we can take is listening.

By listening, we shine a light on all the corners where racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and all other forms of prejudice hide. We learn, through people's own words, what they need. We stop projecting onto them what we think they need or what we think we would need if we were them.

For more on this, I cannot recommend The Color of Fear enough. To try and express what happens in this documentary in a blog post would do a disservice to it. Go check it out, and afterwards, come back and share your thoughts with me. 

Exploring division, social injustice and oppression is an ongoing thing for me. If you would like to recommend a book, podcast, or movie, leave it in the comments. I promise I will check it out!

​Today, I was invited by my friend Tasha Wilson to her house for coffee and a dialogue about race and the often ignored racism in modern America. So many of us express the need to have conversations that make us uncomfortable but ultimately help us to grow as people and a society. However, few of us take the steps to do this, and I learned so much just from Tasha's grace and willingness to open this door.

​I first met Tasha through a 48 hour film challenge last year. Although we hadn't seen each other since, we've stayed Facebook friends. Tasha has occasionally shared things on Facebook about what it's like to be a black woman in today's society. Recently, she posted something about the current Miss Universe, who is South African. Tasha asked how many people truly understand how the world views a dark skinned woman. She said she often gets the back-handed comment that some feel is complementary: "Tasha, you're so pretty. . . . for a dark skinned woman."

I responded to the post that I myself know little of what her life and her experiences have been like, and that many people, like myself, were raised unaware of the differences between white existence and black existence. Tasha responded with "when you say that many white people don't believe a difference exists, I feel you must re-examine that statement and possibly break it down on a deeper level." She invited my over for coffee to hear more of what she meant, and I was amazed at how gracefully she did this.

​After we agreed to meet the next day, she called me to make sure I knew she wasn't mad at what I'd written. When Tasha called, I could already see a glimpse of the different ways we've learned to navigate society. The fact that she felt she had to put my comfort first said so much to me about how different our experiences are. I asked myself why I hadn't called her first, and am still reflecting on why I hadn't considered her needs in the same way. We talked a lot about this, and about how I have lived a life surrounded by people who look like me. I have never made an effort to have a diverse group of friends, and as Tasha shared, this is a luxury in itself. 

For many people, having friends who don't look like you isn't a choice.  I have always had the ease of surrounding myself with people who look like me, and on top of that, never even considered that this was a privilege. When I go to parties, job interviews, stores, anywhere really, I have the comfort of blending in. Of course there have been Latina friends and Asian friends, but when it comes to black friends, my circle has remained mostly closed.

And on top of this, I have never been friends, let alone close friends, with a black woman. If you'd asked me why, I would've said it wasn't intentional. I would have said it just happened that way. I wouldn't have asked myself the deeper question of what I was doing to cause this.

As I am now learning, this is because I have done nothing to understand what it means to be black in this world, this country, or even this city I call home. I never asked myself why black women felt left out of the women's march. I never asked myself why I railed against the patriarchy but not white privilege. The impetus to educate myself and understand where I was failing was on me, and I ignored it. Although I threw around phrases like institutional racism, I never tried to understand what that really means. I called myself aware and progressive, but I wasn't. I was only aware of enough to give myself a sense of moral superiority to those that I considered racist.

Essentially, I did just enough to make myself feel better without actually doing anything at all. I would not have even considered how selfish, closed minded, and hurtful this is if Tasha hadn't invited me over to have a deeper look at my views.

As I was heading over to Tasha's house, I knew this was going to expose many levels of ignorance I hold. I know this is a reason many people avoid these kinds of conversations. We don't want to feel stupid. We don't want to have our social views picked apart and exposed. But this all comes back to Tasha calling me to make sure I was comfortable - for many Americans, their comfort is never a consideration, and people like myself never stop to ask how we're contributing to an inbuilt system that prioritizes white people.

As Tasha and I shared coffee (and the best french toast ever), we talked about how she had to talk to her son about what to do when he gets pulled over. She had to make sure he understood that much of society views him as a threat, just for being a black man. She had to have discussions not about his future, college, and his dreams, but how to stay alive in a racist system. We talked about her family, and how her grandparents grew up in Alabama at a time when education wasn't even an option for them.

We talked about mental health, and how few black psychologists there are. On a deeper level, we discussed how this stems from the African American community being banned from mental asylums through most of history. At some point, you've seen a TV show or movie that shows sanitariums from the the 1960's and before. Did you ever notice there were only white people there? Further still, once black men and women were admitted they were abused in such a way that it fostered a distrust of the mental health system itself. Until we talk openly about these things, we cannot heal the root of the pain we have caused and are still causing through our desire to look the other way.

We also talked about the fact that many people think everything is fine, and there is no need to have these kinds of discussions. For many people, racism is a thing of the past. For anyone who believes this, I would just have them listen to a threatening phone call Tasha received.

A man, believing she had made incendiary political remarks (she hadn't - she's not a political person and never speaks about politics) called her in a rage. Without even realizing he'd called the wrong person, he left a hateful, homophobic, racist, and threatening message (Tasha is not gay - but he still threw in that hate anyways). I was scared just listening to it, and was chilled by how easily he threw around the n word and his desire to physical hurt her. 

There is so much more I would want to share about how Tasha opened my mind and heart today. Her unbelievably wise daughter Aciemarie was there also, and she said some powerful things that I will continue to reflect on. Until someone opens their heart to you, you can't know what you don't know. It takes so much grace and patience to share your experiences with a person who has not walked in your shoes. It takes an incredible amount of trust and a belief that people, when you get them to listen, are understanding and good in their core.

As much as I wish racism was a thing of the past, it's not, and the way to change that is to connect with each other. To have the conversations that make us uncomfortable. To put ourselves in situations that breakdown our views so that we can open up to new ones. And for people like myself, to ask how we're contributing, either through apathy or ignorance, to a system that is far from equal.

Thank you, Tasha, for showing me the true meaning of love and courage. You are an amazing human on every level, and you taught me something today that will reverberate for the rest of my life.